Signatures 09: 30th Anniversary Celebration

Celebrate with us! Friday, March 6 and Saturday, March 7 at 7:30 pm.

New York Theatre Ballet will revive Antony Tudor’s rarely-seen Trio Con Brio during the company’s Signatures 09 program.  NYTB will also premiere a new work choreographed by Chase Brock, artistic director of The Chase Brock Experience.  Mr. Brock’s recent season at the Joyce Soho displayed “a lovely spatial sense, an aptitude for quick comic strokes, and a sense of theatrical timing,” according to The New York Times.

Foot Work - World Premiere!

Friday, April 17 & 24, Saturday, April 18 & 25 at 7:30 pm - just 4 performances!

New York Theatre Ballet celebrates its 30th Anniversary season with the premiere of Foot Work, a dance/drama which tells the story of choreographer Agnes de Mille's struggle for success in the American theatre.  Through the use of narration, dramatic interpretation and actual de Mille dances, Foot Work reveals Miss de Mille's childhood influences, early attempts as a solo artist, and her eventual success as the ground-breaking theatrical innovator known throughout the world for her choreography during the golden age of musical theatre, as well as her incalculable contribution to ballet.  Performances of Foot Work take place on April 17 & 18 and April 24 & 25, 2009 at 7:30 pm at Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street, NYC.

Foot Work will include dances from Oklahoma, Carousel, Brigadoon and Paint Your Wagon, as well as Fall River Legend, Three Virgins and a Devil, Rodeo, Dust and Stage Fright. The script for Foot Work is written by Anderson Ferrell, novelist and director of The de Mille Working Group.  It is staged by Gemze DeLappe and Liza Gennero.   The production will be a first for New York Theatre Ballet as the company expends beyond its usual repertory of small classic masterworks.  NYTB will be performing Foot Work throughout the country following the premiere.

Tickets will be on sale soon. To request a brochure, please email Christina Paolucci at cpaolucci@nytb.org with your name and address with correct spelling. Please be sure to type "Signatures" in the subject line of your email.

From the 2007-08 Season:

Read The New York Times review by Alastair Macaulay.

Read the Voice of Dance review by Tobi Tobias.

Read the danceviewtimes review by Susan Reiter.

View an on-line photo diary of NYTB in rehearsal for Jardin aux Lilas on The Dance Enthusiast.

Download our Agnes de Mille Study Guide.

"With the exception of "Rodeo," Agnes de Mille's dances are seldom performed these days, 13 years after her death. So "A. de Mille Celebration," a gem of a program presented by the New York Theatre Ballet on Friday night at Florence Gould Hall was a welcome attempt at giving de Mille the honor she deserves. The lovingly, seamlessly staged evening, put together by Sallie Wilson and Gemze de Lappe and set to music performed live by a chamber ensemble and vocalists, began with: de Mille's Three Virgins and a Devil, created in 1941 for Ballet Theater (later American Ballet Theater), and Debut at the Opera. Antony Tudor's 1938 Judgment of Paris was also performed, a sardonic resetting of the Greek legend in a dusty little Paris cafe populated by an exhausted waiter, three broken-down prostitute-goddesses -- one of them performed, hilariously, by de Mille in the original -- and the drunken lone customer who must choose among them. The second act, devoted to de Mille's Broadway career, included the "Dream Ballet" from Oklahoma, "Another Autumn" from Paint Your Wagon, "Come to Me, Bend to Me" from Brigadoon, and the "Hornpipe" from Carousel. The performances were expert and, even more important, so unassuming and wholehearted that once-dusty-seeming dances came vitally alive." (Jennifer Dunning, New York Times, 2006)

pas de deux from Jardin aux Lilas

"What made the production [of Jardin aux Lilas] especially fascinating was the way the intimacy of the house made one able to see small and eloquent gestural details." (London's Dancing Times 2003)

"All the more reason that the ballets from [Tudor's] early years that can be revived like those on this program, be kept in repertory, and we must be grateful to Diana Byer and Sallie Wilson, faithful keepers of the flame." (Ballet Review 2003)

"By producing choreographically strong small-scale works, the New York Theatre Ballet, under Diana Byer's direction, has made itself a welcome presence here. Last year it mounted a successful evening of miniatures by Antony Tudor, and one of them, Sallie Wilson's sharp staging of Judgment of Paris, was danced again. But what made the evening special this year were two ballets, which, though by major choreographers, are virtually unknown here today: Frederick Ashton's Capriol Suite and George Balanchine's A La Francaix." (London's Dancing Times, 2004)

"The New York Theatre Ballet, which delighted a capacity Community Center Theater audience over the weekend on the Community Concert Series [with its Legends & Visionaries program], turned out to be one of those shows that are so good they seem worth the price of the entire series of five attractions." (The Sacramento Bee - Sacramento, CA)

"...a triumph of style and musicality...Here are arms and feet behaving with proper neo-Romantic delicacy. Here are the evocative gestures of listening and summoning, the familiar fleeting encounters between poet and sylphs restored to something like their original inspiration. Here are dance phrases taking their impulse and breath from the score. How heartening it is to see something done wonderfully with such modest means." (New York Magazine)

"Last night your ballet company performed in our town. This is the second time I have attended one of your ballets. I was once again thrilled with the performance of dancer Ursula Prenzlau. I was fortunate to see her perform as The Magic Rose the first time I saw her. Her style touched me. She dances with her whole being. Her face and her eyes shine as she performs. I want to express my feelings about Inside Heat. I thought it was incredible! I have written a support group manual for battered women and facilitate support groups. My main message to the women is to give themselves the gift of time alone so they can get to know who they are and who they want to strive to be, hence discovering the gift of themselves. As I watched the story unfold, I was watching everything I teach being expressed through dance. From our expected selves, to our presenting selves, to the gift of ourselves. From isolation to taking risks. From letting others tell us who we are to making the choice to find out for ourselves who we are. My compliments to Lou Fancher for choreographing a dance with a message that touched my soul. I am moving to the Atlanta area and hope to see more of your performances down south! Thank you for a wonderful evening!" (Ellyn Houston - Billings, MT)

"What a joy it was to watch your performance of Inside Heat! I previously lived in Salt Lake City and our family always had season tickets. I have missed ballet of that caliber since we moved here. Watching Inside Heat fed my soul again...to have an audience here breathless in watching is an incredible feat and your company accomplished it. I was particularly impressed with Mu Seop Sin in A Secret Somewhere. My humble thanks, and those of my husband, to the company that for one evening gave us pause to remember." (Janice and Michael Swann - Corpus Christi, TX)